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Looks like it.
Glad I'm over here for now. Looks like bad shit there.
For some background that is never covered in overseas papers, the last 5+ years have seen some middle eastern gangs coming to the forefront in Sydney. Gangrapes of young (14ish) girls, targeted because they're white. And if the perpetrators are caught, they show little or no remorse, and blame it on the girl, even to the point where some have dished out racial abuse at the girls in the court. The gangs have been involved in racial attacks against white people. They've been involved in shooting up police stations. Racial slurs against whites when they pass them. I'm sure you get the picture.
Australians have been growing increasingly frustrated by the lack of action, the 'softly softly' approach by police and state politicians, because of the fear of being called racist, has resulted in inaction, and community anger has increased. Factor in some level of increasing xenophobia after Sept 11, Bali bomings, London bomings, attacks against Australian embassies, and the right-wing policies of the federal government.
Aussies are getting frustrated at middle eastern gangs, and xenophobic about middle easterners in general.
Then, last weekend, a middle eastern gang set upon volunteer lifeguards at Cronulla beach, a place where they've been known to harass white people. Now, when you're dealing with Aussies, and Sydneysiders in particular, the beach culture is something that you cant touch. Threatening it is like a rallying call.
So Aussies, increasingly frustrated and xenophobic, drew a line in the sand. They got the shits with Middle Eastern gangs. And as we all know, when you're dealing with a large number of disaffected people, history shows the collective IQ drops, and stupid, violent actions occur.
Thats what we saw on the weekend. The disgusting outbreak of violence against a racial group that contains an element that has shown zero respect for Australians. And, of course, whats worse is that those middle easterners that got attacked at the beach or on trains are almost certainly innocent people, only sharing the racial, but not 'ideological' (if you can call it that), background of the gangs that are annoying the australians.
No doubt, some in the crowd were true racists, neo-nazis, white supremacists. But mostly people were just frustrated with the gangs. And disaffected people are easily manipulated. They just got carried away and had bad people egging them on. To parallel Nazi Germany, not all Germans supported nazism and were antisemitic, but many were fed up with the status quo of a country with economic and social problems, frustrated, and became easy to manipulate.
But I digress. Of course, we've also seen a number of reprisal attacks by the middle eastern gangs. Violent rampages, with indiscriminate attacks against more innocent people and their propertly. Cars smashed, bricks thrown through windows, people threatened, attacked, stabbed. All in a cowardly gang manner, just as the attacks by the Aussies were cowardly gang violence.
The worst part of it isnt the notion of gangs fighting. Fuck 'em, let them kill each other. The worst part is the indiscriminate attacks on innocent people, on both sides, that share no more with the targets of anger than the colour of their skin.
I'm sure IU or Dingo or some other Aussies can add their 2c to this issue. Correct me if they think I'm wrong.
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